Chapter I Dr. Ambedkar in Search of Religion

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Chapter I
Dr. Ambedkar in Search of Religion
Dr. Ambedkar who along with Mahatma Gandhi was the co-founder of the
Indian State was incurably religious, but in an exceptional way. Feelings and emotions
for religion were not so important for him; instead its utility in shaping the collective
behaviour of a society was essential for him. It must be stated at the outset that Dr.
Ambedkar’s interest to study religion was social, not academic. This is clear from two
things we find in his writings on this subject. The first thing we find are his critiques of
current religions and advice for reforming them, and the second are his dilemmas as he
searched for the religion best suited for Dalits. He was looking for a religion which
could incorporate them in its society as equals and in this way help them to reclaim
their selfhood. He proceeded to systematically identify the root purpose of religion in
society and assessed whether or not a religion had subsequently evolved on this line.
His voluminous writings published in the series Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and
Speeches indicate that his thoughts emerged from years of thinking, reflecting weighing,
assessing and studying various religious philosophies and political ideologies. But he
was not one to be satisfied by being a faithful adherent; rather he wanted to dismantle
the old and recreate religion anew in his line of conviction i.e. to offer people dignity
and equality.
The significance of this for those studying religion lies in the way he understood its
relevance in his times and context. But let us first introduce our star Dr. Ambedkar, who
is the subject of our study.

1. Who was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar?
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (April 14, 1891–December 6, 1956) was born in Mhow
(central India)1 a town well known for its large garrison. He was a nationalist and a
contemporary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), Mohammed Jinnah
(1876–1949), Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), Abdul Kalam Azad (1887-1958) and Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964).2 He became the first Law Minister of independent India
and is known for his contribution to social equality for the Scheduled Castes. Much has
been written on his life and work. For our study, however, it is necessary to know his
religious upbringing. It is known that his family kept the palanquin of the village
goddess for which they were held in prestige in their community. Although the family

1 His parents were Ramji Sakpal and Bhimabai who were by caste Mahar, a community that was regarded among the
Untouchables. He was the fourteenth child. His father was a minor officer in the Indian army. Dr. Ambedkar unlike
many other Dalits was not deprived in extreme ways.
2 Judith M Brown. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 423-
427.
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followed the bhakti or the devotional stream of the Hindu tradition, it is unclear if they
were Kabirpanthis or adherents of the Kabir-sect as such.3 For us it will be useful to draw
a line under the depressed caste status of the founders of these bhakti sects, e.g. Kabir
was a weaver and Raidas was a chamar or leather-worker. Another feature of the bhakti
stream was its emphasis on social equality which immediately made it popular among
the Dalits.4 This is evident in Kabir’s poems.
In the path of devotion there are no garbs or pretence
No bias of caste and creed, of high and low;
Who adores God’s name is the highest of all and a rare soul.5
Such lyrics, which abound in bhakti, celebrate the affectionate personal
relationship of a devotee with God. For the bhakti saints God is not nirguna or
impersonal force, but is personal and full of good attributes i.e. saguna. Themes in the
bhakti spirituality emphasised awe for the Divine—His name, word, grace, loving
devotion and submission to a spiritual master i.e. Guru. At the same time it must be
admitted that the Indian poet-saints of the bhakti tradition (1300-1600 CE) found little
success in changing the social order of caste. Dr. Ambedkar drew attention of the
people to this drawback in his speech in 1928 at a meeting convened for planning to
construct a temple for Chokamela, a saint of the bhakti tradition. He said,
Yet from the view point of the annihilation of caste, the struggle of the saints did not
have any effect on society. The value of man (sic! human beings) is axiomatic, self-
evident; it does not come to him as the result of the gilding of bhakti. The saints did not
struggle to establish this point.6
Consequently the problem of social inequality under which Dalits suffered in Indian
society was left unchallenged. This is as far as the background of Dr. Ambedkar’s
family concerns us; let us now turn our attention to the boy Bhim.
Education was not open for children of the Scheduled Caste families. They
normally followed the trade of their families. However for some bright children—
particularly boys—exceptions were made. Bhim was an intelligent boy but he was
discriminated in school, for instance, by being made to squat separately in the class on a

3 Flood notes that poet-saints or sants in north India were from various social backgrounds. Mirabai was a princess,
Nanak was a khatri. However, the impact of Kabir (1398-1448) was the greatest. He was born in a Muslim family of
weavers. His popularity is due to his bold criticism of the religious practices both of the Muslims and Hindus current
in that era. These sants gathered a following around them. So the followers of Kabir were known as Kabirpanthi, of
Raidas were the Raipanthis. Cf. Gavin Flood. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2011, p. 144-145.
4 Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1992, p. 9.
5 V.K.Sethi, Kabir: The Weaver of God’s Name. Dera: Radha Soami Satsang. Beas. Dera-Baba-Jaimal-Singh, 1998, p. 675.
6 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Value of a Man is Axiomatic, Self-evident’ (1928), idem Writings and Speeches Vol.17.3, p. 8.
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piece of gunny cloth.7 To help the boy out of this situation, a Brahmin teacher, who had
enrolled him in the school, gave him his own name Ambedkar.8 The boy thereafter
stopped using his family name Sakpal9 that identified him as an Untouchable.10
Admittedly Gandhi too was ignorant of Dr. Ambedkar’s antecedent until his encounter
with him at the 1931 second Round Table Conference.11 The Round Table Conferences
(1930-32) in London were convened in London to deliberate on the political future of
India. Here Dr. Ambedkar, as a representative of the Depressed Classes (the official
nomenclature for Dalits in those times), argued and succeeded in procuring his demand
for Depressed Classes to separately elect their representatives for the Legislative
Assembly in the British-India, besides electing general representatives with all the rest
of the people. This was the famous communal award of the then British Prime Minister,
Ramsay MacDonald. Although in 1932 Dr. Ambedkar withdrew this demand at
Mahatma Gandhi’s behest, his basic demand for a just share of political power for Dalits
did not change. The basis of this political demand was articulated in his cry “restore to
us the selfhood”.12
Having completed his education from the Elphinstone College, Mumbai, he
received a scholarship from Sayajirao Gaekwad, Maharajah of Baroda, to pursue his
education overseas.13 Sayajirao was committed to social reforms.14 A brief survey of Dr.
Ambedkar’s academic track brings a couple of facts to light. The first thing is that religion was
not his subject of study at the university and the second one is that a benevolent sponsorship
helped to change the destiny of innumerable people. Under the Maharaja’s scholarship Dr.
Ambedkar did his advanced studies at the Columbia University in U.S. living in New York for
three years, 1913 to 1916. Here, in 1915, he submitted his thesis “The Administration and
Finances of East India Company” and he was awarded the Masters of Arts. At that time he was

7 Keer, Dr. Ambedkar p. 14.
8 The mistaken idea among some that this name was a derivation of “Ambvadekar” probably emerges from the fact
that the Dr. Ambedkar’s family originally came from the village Ambvade. Cf. Vasant, Moon. Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar.New Delhi: National Book Trust of India, 2002, p. 2.
9 His full name was “Bhimrao Ramji Sakpal”.
10 Anthropologists like David Blundell have used the term “undercaste” to denote the Untouchables. India Today Vol
XXXIII No. 16. April 15-21, 2008, p. 15.
11 Guy Deleary. India: The Rebel Continent. New Delhi: MacMillan. 2000, p. 329
12 A translation cited on the title page of M.S. Gore The Social Context of an Ideology: Dr. Ambedkar’s Political and Social
Thought. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993 is as following: “Imploring, begging and depending on the kindness of
others will not restore to us the selfhood that we have been robbed off. We have to regain it on our own strength. It is
true that the path of protest we have advocated is a difficult one, but our untouchable brethren should not let
themselves be cowed down by the fear that the touchables will retaliate against their act of protest. We have to show
our determination in our resolve”. (emphasis is added).
13 This scholarship was of Rs.25/- per month, which shows Maharaja’s progressive views of appreciating meritorious
students irrespective of caste or class.
14 Eleanor Zelliot From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement, New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and
Distributors. 2005, p. 313
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24 years of age.15 At this time his interaction with the Afro-American community and the
conversations surrounding the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution bringing social
equality for all people in the United States impressed him.16 Having enrolled himself in Gray’s
Inn for Law and with the London School of Economics for further studies, he returned to
Mumbai on August 21, 1917 via Colombo. This was also a time of global upheavals. The
Bolsheviks had succeeded in their revolution to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
in 1917, bringing the era of the Russian Empire to an end. At the same time the Great War 1914-
1918 was raging in Europe. These events were associated with revolutionary changes in the
world especially in the field of economics and politics. Communism was going to redraw the
international boundaries of many traditional Christian and Buddhist countries. The impact on
these is evident on Dr. Ambedkar’s theoretical outlook. He believed that it was possible to
radically change society.
Under the agreement of his scholarship, Dr. Ambedkar was appointed as the
Military Secretary to the Maharaja.17 But the religious sensibilities of his subordinates in
his office were such that they observed a careful distance from him. As the situation
became unbearable he left his job and went to Mumbai where he started his career in
the legal world. His help to Dalits made him known as the “poor man’s barrister”. On
January 27, 1919, while in India, he testified to the Southborough Committee about the
large numbers of those affected by untouchability and argued that their proportionate
representation was important to make government truly representative.18 This was the
beginning of his political life also.19 On January 31, 1920 having started a fortnightly
newspaper Mooknayak (Organizer of the Silenced) with the help of Sayajirao Gaekwad,
he published his writings in it.20
In July 1920 he left for London for advanced studies at the London School of
Economics where he was awarded the Master of Science. Once in London Dr.
Ambedkar also got the Barrister-at-Law for which he had earlier enrolled himself at the
Gray’s Inn of Law. This time he was sponsored by Chhatrapati Shahu the Maharaja of
Kolhapur, who too was a reformist. Meanwhile his doctoral thesis, on which he was

15 Kamal Kishore Kadam. (Education Minister of Maharashtra State) in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches.
Vol-6. Mumbai: Education Department. Government of Maharashtra. 1989, p. ix.
16 In 1866, Congress (United States of America) passed the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This
Amendment extended citizenship to the Afro-Americans of the United States. The text of the this 14th Amendment is:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.
www.usa.gov official website portal visited on 9th June 2012.
17 Dhananjay Keer. Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1992, p. 34
18 Vasant Moon. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Life and Mission. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2002, p. 20.
19 Zelliot From Untouchable to Dalit. p. 65.
20 Keer, Dr. Ambedkar p. 41.
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simultaneously working, was submitted albeit after he had returned to India that was
published in 1923 by P.S. King & Son. Ltd. London under a new title.21 In this work he
showed that the convertibility of the Rupee coin was unstable due to an over-issue of it.
This was precarious for the Indian economy. He, therefore, argued for the issuing
inconvertible paper currency in lieu of metallic coins.22 For this work he was awarded
the degree, Doctor of Science, from the Columbia University in United States.23 On
returning to India he changed his track. Instead of economics he started to work on two
fronts. The first front was to practice law to earn a living and the second was his
engagement with politics. The agenda of his political life was to become the national
representative of the Untouchables. This is clear in his initiatives of setting up a welfare
association for those affected by untouchability in 1924 called the Bahiskrit Hitkarini
Sabha and in starting a newspaper Bahishkrit Bharat in 1927 to make the grievances of
Dalits public.24 It is very interesting to note that as a politician he had a deep interest in
religion. This is the chief focus of our study.

2. Dr. Ambedkar’s Response to Religions
His response to religion was not merely theoretical; rather he demonstrated its
strategic utility in public. It is very interesting to see that while the nationalists were
mobilizing masses to protest against Simon Commission Dr. Ambedkar mobilized
Dalits to protest against Manu.25 His first public action was to openly burn a copy of
Manusmriti on the Christmas day of 1927. Composed sometime between 200 B.C.E and
300 C.E. it enumerated the law of the social classes i.e. castes.26 This act was a protest to
the resistance put up by the caste minded people to his march at Mahad. This march was
to assert the right of Dalits to drink water at the Public Chawdar Lake, which was
traditionally prohibited to them. Similarly the Temple Entry Movement at Kalaram
Temple, at Nasik in 1930 revealed his resolve to fight against religion for the equal
rights of Dalits. He objected to religion’s support to inequality and untouchability. We
can see that these three i.e. religion, caste and untouchability, were thickly knotted. Dr.
Ambedkar explained this interconnection theoretically and demonstrated its social
impact by highlighting the function of religion. His view of the function of religion was
specific and focused. So let me introduce it here.

21 The facsimile of the title page of The Problem of the Rupee: Its Origin and Its Solution. in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Writings and Speeches. Vol-6. Book-3. Mumbai: Education Department. Government of Maharashtra.. 1989, p. 316.
22B.R. Ambedkar, The Problem of The Rupee (1923) in Idem Writings and Speeches. Vol-6. Book-3. Mumbai:1989, pp.
607-613.
23 Keer, Dr. Ambedkar, p. 49.
24 Bidyut Chakrabarty and Rajendra Kumar Pandey. Modern Indian Political Thought: Text and Context. New Delhi:
Sage Publications, 2009, p. 30.
25 Bidyut Chakrabarty. Modern Indian Political Thought. p. 285.
26 D.S.Sarma, Hinduism through the Ages. Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1961, p. 269.
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People cherish their religion as a source of strength, inspiration, consolation and
guidance. Religion also generates a social association at gatherings, festivals and
pilgrimages. So we can see religion manifestly in public places but privately individuals
are deeply attached to rituals, ceremonies and observances like prayer, fasting and
almsgiving.27 Dr. Ambedkar pointed out that such followers did not think that their
religion had anything to do with structuring society but regarded it purely as a matter
of personal relationship with God. For Dr. Ambedkar, however, this was not what
religion was all about. Emphasizing the social utility of religion he pointed out the
irrelevancy of personal piety. He wrote,
Religion becomes a source of positive mischief if not danger when it remains individual,
private and personal. Equally mistaken is the view that religion is the flowering of
special religious instinct inherent in the nature of the individual. The correct view is that
religion like language is social for the reason that either is essential for social life and the
individual has to have it because without it he cannot participate in the life of the
society.28
In his view religion was a not a private affair of individuals but a collective function of
society. Here he used ‘function’ in a specific way in line with what an American scholar
Charles A. Ellwood had written.29 He figured out three functions of religion from these
articles,

1. Religion universalizes social values.

2. Religion spiritualizes social values.

3. Religion is an agency of social control.
Now social values for Dr. Ambedkar were dignity, equality, liberty and fraternity.30
By universalizing these he meant that which has been accepted and practiced globally
by its adherents for a long period of time e.g. monogamy among the Christians. In this
way religion enables its adherents to accept and to practice its norms in their own
particular localities. When individuals do this, they act as approved members of their
religious society.31 By spiritualizing he meant interconnectivity between all things in the
universe. So the human life was full of meaning in the chain of cause-and-effect.32 By
social control he meant the moral governance, particularly in controlling human

27 The Gospel of Saint Matthew 6.1-18.
28 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Away From the Hindus’ (1936) idem Writings and Speeches.Vol-5. Mumbai: 1989, p. 409.
29 Dr. Ambedkar was closely following the ideas of Charles A. Ellwood from his article The Religious Reconstruction: A
sociological View. New York: The Macmillan, 1922.
30 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Away From the Hindus’ (1936), p. 411.
31 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Away From the Hindus’ (1936), p. 409.
32 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Away From the Hindus’ (1936), p. 410.
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behaviour in society in which injunctions of religion are much more effective than the
law and the State.33
Dr. Ambedkar’s scrutiny of religion was based on this understanding of
function. Clearly, this was a reduced view of what religion was all about. Dr.
Ambedkar’s rejection of deity as central to religious conviction and as dispensable for
doing theology caused him to set aside the mystical, emotional and relational aspect of
devotee to his/her deity. Consequently he undermined the rich deposit of knowledge
containing reflection and speculation on God, his being, and his action. Later in chapter-
2 we will take up these and his other ideas for theorizing on religion in a fuller measure.
For Dr. Ambedkar caste system and untouchability were diametrically opposed to
justice and freedom. If such system and practice were sanctioned by a religion then he
argued that that religion had swerved from the right track.
In the Round Table Conferences (1931-32) which deliberated on the Indian
Constitution, one of the tense issues among others was to assess the standing of the
Scheduled Castes in the arena of national politics. Some had proposed that the Hindu
Scheduled castes should be counted along with the rest of the Hindus and that they
should not be placed on par with other minorities by granting them separate
electorates. Dr. Ambedkar was very discontent with this proposal. He knew that the
caste system would never make it possible for the Scheduled Castes who had been
assimilated into Hinduism to be respected as equals. As a protest at a conference of the
Scheduled Castes at Yeola on October 13, 1935, Dr. Ambedkar announced his decision to
convert to an egalitarian religion. This became famous as the Yeola Declaration.34 In his
conversations with Bishop Pickett on November 24, 1936 he expressed his inability at
that time to choose which religion he would embrace, because ‘it would risk alienating
some who were friendly to him’. From what Bishop Pickett noted in his diary we can
see religious feeling surging within him. He noted that Ambedkar seemingly felt that
his life was not his own, that he had been given the privilege of an education and other
advantages for a reason … for some special destiny.35 For reaching this special destiny
he wanted a religion that could change the life of those who were affected by
untouchability and help them to repossess their selfhood. In this study we will trace his
search and see what he found. Dr. Ambedkar died on December 6, 1956 in Delhi. His
body was flown to Mumbai for the last rites but no State ceremony was extended to him

33 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Away From the Hindus’ (1936), p. 411.
34Arthur G. McPhee. Road to Delhi: Bishop J Waskom Pickett Remembered.1890-1981. Bangalore: SAIACS Press, 2005, p.
240.
35 McPhee. Road to Delhi. p. 247.
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then.36 Later, after thirty six years in April 1990, he was posthumously honoured with
the highest national honour of India, Bharat Ratna.

3. The Indian Social Context
As we have discussed above, at the heart of the Indian social context is the system of
caste. Romila Thapar explains that caste ‘requires the existence of hereditary groups
determining marriage relations, which are arranged in hierarchical order and perform
services for one another. The hierarchy is dependent on occupation, on certain beliefs of
purity and pollution, and on continued settlement in a particular geographical
location’.37 Before we consider the social context of India from Dr. Ambedkar’s
perspective let us see what others have observed about it. I will give just two
trustworthy witnesses, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the current Prime Minster of India and
the excerpt from the Mandal Commission Report, appointed by the Central government
of India in 1978 to study the status of Backward Castes. Singh paralleling caste
discrimination with apartheid said that, “Even after 60 years of constitutional and legal
protection and support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts
of our country. Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is
fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general. The only
parallel to the practice of untouchability was apartheid.”38 This is evidenced in the
Mandal Commission Report submitted in 1980 (but was made public only in 1990) in the
following paragraph:39
Even if the caste model described by us represents an ideal state, yet it does not negate
the fact that, the caste system has been the most enduring basis of social organization in
India or, that, it has divided the Indian society into a large number of hierarchically
arranged high and low castes or, that, the lower castes have suffered crippling social
handicaps for centuries as a result of the low caste status. Similarly, despite all the
modification that caste has undergone over the ages and, especially after Independence,
changes in caste system are representative more of shifts in emphasis than any material
alteration in this basic structure.40
Granted that social inequality arising out of the caste system has adversely
affected the society, the problem is much deeper than this. Dr. Ambedkar pointed out
that social inequality had three aspects which make the caste system nearly
unchangeable. Firstly, one’s interiorizing the idea of caste which makes habits part of a

36 Ivan Koshtka. ‘A Tale of Two Funerals: Ambedkar’s and Bal Thakreray’s’ in Forward Press. Vol-IV, No.12,
December 2012, New Delhi, p. 16.
37 Romila Thapar. Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History New Delhi.: Oxford University Press. 2000, p. 11
38 Guardian Weekly January 5-1.2007
39 Ghua, India after Gandhi. p. 635.
40 Mandal Commission Report of the Backward Classes Commission, 1980. Section 5.3 Social Dynamics of Caste. New
Delhi: Akalank Publications, p. 23.
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culture; secondly, the rootedness of caste system in religion which makes any attempt to
change it almost a taboo and thirdly, the beliefs associated with caste system which
gives consolation in times of one’s anxiety arising out of identity and moral crisis. As a
consequence the system of social inequality has become ingrained and internalized by
the people. There is another aspect added to this, it is the quality of resilience of the
caste system. The Caste system faced serious challenges from Buddhism in antiquity,
the spread of Islam in India in the early medieval times, the spread of Christianity in the
modern times, and new ideas like democracy and communism that were introduced
during the colonial rule—British, French, Portugal, Dutch and Danes. Under these
trying circumstances the caste system proved its capacity like an amoeba to shape its
contours without diminishing its contents; and so by developing temporary projections
it kept pace with a new age and changing culture, passing over the threats of politicians
and reformers. It neither lost its relevance nor was it shelved; rather the fact of its
resilience had to be reckoned with as society passed through the passages of time and
its culture changed from one generation to another. It attended especially to the
question of identity and consciousness—who am I? How can I be righteous? What is my
future after I die? And so it kept manifesting itself anew by offering contentment in
crisis to every generation. The Mandal Commission Report observed that,
Caste has endured over the ages owing to its great resilience; like the proverbial cat, it
has nine lives. In fact, no scheme of social organization can survive for long, unless it
keeps adjusting with changes in society and is able to produce effective answers to the
contemporary problems. It was its basic resilience that enabled caste system to survive
the challenges of Buddhism and Islam, the shock of the alien British culture and
administration and crusades of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Lohia.41
In this way the caste system is interlocked with Indian religions, its cultures, its
philosophies and its worldviews. The influence of this is so vast that all sections of
populace, every ethnic group and all denominations have been affected by internalizing
its basics. The basic element is the caste-based-hierarchical society where Brahmins
dominate on all the rest below them i.e. kshatriya, vaishya, Shudra and Dalit. Added to
the social hierarchy of caste, is the notion of ritual cleanness. Here some are predestined
to be clean castes and others are not. So the distinction between the ‘clean castes’ and
‘polluting castes’ and those falling in between, is also worked out to the minute detail.
As a result the habit to maintain distance from the untouchables and to ensure that
what is clean is carefully protected from being fouled has boiled down to become
culture. Similarly the compulsive mindset to fall into social hierarchy by voluntarily
placing one’s group either above or underneath another group, betrays its ingrained

41 Social Dynamics of Caste. Section 5.3 in Mandal Commission Report1980, p. 23.
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feature in culture. This inequality in India is intertwined with the practice of
untouchability. Obviously this intertwining is due to the notion of clean and polluted in
symbolic world. The consequence of this is that Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims are
doubly discriminated, firstly in the wider society and secondly by their co-religionists.
Dr. Ambedkar in his time addressed the problem of social inequality and
untouchability not only by pioneering reforms and making provisions to compensate
the discriminations suffered by Dalits, but he also set example in his personal life when
he married Dr. Sharda Kabir, a saraswat Brahmin, on April 15, 1948 in New Delhi under
the Civil Marriage Act, long after the death of his first wife.42 In this act of marriage he
showed that a way forward to break the boundries of the caste was to encourage
intermarriage among various castes.
As we know since 1951 the Indian Parliament has been making statutory
provisions to bring respite to the Dalits and also women.43 This was chiefly done by
reserving seats for the Scheduled Caste candidates. This was done in the State
institutions for advanced education, professional and technical training. In government
departments places were reserved to employ them. Constituencies were also reserved
for the Scheduled Caste candidates to contest both for State and National elections.
Thus by bringing the extreme sections of populace on par with the advanced sections it
was hoped that greater social equality would follow. However, in the passing years
these provisions which are in nature compensatory have failed to obliterate the
inequality of caste in India’s society. Prof Nandu Ram, presently holding the Dr.
Ambedkar Chair at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi writes,
During the recent decades, specially after independence of the country, members of the
stigmatized castes or ethnic communities have been striving for overcoming the stigma
of their collectivity (caste and ethic community) as well as of their own. Since they are
engaged in looking for alternative self and collective or group (caste) identity, they have
been making use of two courses of action, rather social processes, which have remained
in vogue in Indian society: one, making use of achievements in secular domains like
education, caste-free occupations or white collar jobs (economic) and power or
authority. But all these three, in actuality, do not replace or obliterate their traditionally
stigmatized group or caste identity.44
This means that the burden to fight inequality has now been taken up by individuals
and social groups in civil society. Therefore, what further should be done? Where shall
we go from here? We will explore the answers to these queries in Dr. Ambedkar’s

42 Dhananjay Keer. Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1992, p. 403/4.
43 Guha. India after Gandhi: p. 239; and Mandal Commission Report 1980. Section 7.4. p. 29.
44 Nandu Ram. Encyclopaedia of Scheduled Castes in India, Vol-1. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2007, p. xxix.
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